Getting Ready for OASIS-C

by Julianne Haydel on March 23, 2009

Anyone who has been in home care for any length of time knows better than to change all their processes for changes slated to occur in nine months. And yet, if you have been in home care that long, you know that waiting to the last minute is also not a viable option. The question I am facing with my clients currently is how to prepare for OASIS-C now so that when it is time for complete implementation it won’t be as painful. The answers I want to give are those that benefit the agency now and will ease the pain of OASIS-C implementation.

Below are five things that you can do now in order to prepare for OASIS-C. More than ever we want your comments so that we can add to the list for everyone’s benefit in the coming weeks and months.

Assign a staff member to begin preparing for next year’s flu season so that a plan exists to monitor the vaccination status of all patients. Prepare consent forms and order templates to ensure that your staff are ready to attack the flu head on in October.

Call your wound care supply vendors. Ask for education. An abundance of programs are out there, free of charge to agencies. Wound care needs to be taken to the next level in home health.

Run a list of all patients with heart failure as a diagnosis. See if your agency is weighing patients, monitoring electrolytes, and preventing hospitalizations. Design a program to meet your agency’s needs.

This list is just a beginning. But hopefully everything on this list will benefit patients beginning now. It is simple and can be fully completed within a month. Hopefully by then, we can publish another to do list.